Improvement in fire-proof safes or chests for the preservation of books



4 UNITED STATES PATENT .OFFICE BEN. SHERWOOD, OF NEV YORK, N. Y.

IMPROVEMENT` IN FIRE-PROOF SAFES OR CHESTS FOVR THE PRESERVATION 0F BOOKS,l &c. y

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 190, dated May 8, 1837.

To all whom t may concer/t.-

Be it known that I, BENJAMIN SHERWooD, of the city, county, and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Safes or Chests for the Preservation of Books, 85e., from Fire and Thieves; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact description thereof.

The revolving safe within a safe is made as follows: A plate of iron is bent either cylindrically or otherwise, and connected by rivets. Another is then made smaller in diameter and in length by about four inches. A space for a door is left in the side of each. The smaller one is covered atthe end With plateiron and placed within the larger. The space between them is then iilled With pulverized charcoal and boiled gypsum of about equal proportions. An iron head isthen put upon each end and secured, having in its center a pivot, H, upon which it may revolve. Adoor is then made to fit, and the inner revolving one, C, is complete. The outer and larger one, B, is made in a precisely similar manner, except that the pivots of the inner safe t into corresponding sockets in the top and bottom of the outer one. The outer safe is made so as to contain a thicker layer ofthe pulverized charcoal and boiled gypsum than the inner one, and is made so much larger that when the inner one is hung Within lit there will be inches.

Theintention of the inner safe is that when it is placed within the outer one and the books deposited the door may be closed, and it may be turned round and secured, so that the doors of the safes are on opposite sides.

The safe has handles, and is mounted on casters.

What I claim as my own invention, and not before known or used in safes, is

l. The principle of suspending by pivots one safe Within another, that the door of the inner one may be shut and it turned round and secured so as to place the door of the inner and outer safes in different directions from each other, that if bya fall or any great Weight falling upon it or otherwise the outer door should be thrown open the inner one, being the contents.

2. The application of pulverized charcoal and boiled gypsum combined in fire-proof chests as a non-conductor of heat.

E. sHEItWooD.

Witnesses:

E. R. CARPENTER., IsAAc O. BARKER.

a clear space, G, all round of one or moreturned around', would prevent any exposure of 

